What is GripShift? You tell me. Calling it a racing game alone doesn’t do it justice as it contains a unique mix of platforming and puzzle-type challenges all while in a speed buggy. GripShift isn’t all that amazing, but what it tries to accomplish is bring something new to the table. And while GripShift possibly has the makings of a perfect formula for a handheld game, some gameplay issues hold it back from being as good as it could’ve been.

There’s not much to explain about GripShift; you just pick up the game and start playing. You play through hordes of levels, each with a number of goals needed to be completed, and the difficulty of these levels progressively become more difficult with each level completed. Just by the sheer amount of levels present in the game, it will keep you busy for a long time to come. A total of one-thousand credits are available to earn through challenges, races, and bonus games, and when specific amounts of credits are acquired, new unlockable items make themselves present in the game, including new racers, cars, tracks, bonus games, and things of the like. It is also a prerequisite to earn a certain amount of credits before going to a new “level” of tracks, since they’re separated into their respective difficulties.

To earn credits, you have to complete certain challenges within the level you select. The most common way to earn credits is through the single-player challenge mode, where you can do one of four things to progress. If you simply complete a track within the time that’s given to you, you’re able to unlock the next level, but if you complete a track before a certain time, you can achieve up to three credits, one for a bronze time ranking, one for silver, and one for gold. It’s basically a finish-this-as-fast-as-you-can sort of thing, and you’re awarded accordingly. Each level has its own time limit and goals. The other things you can do in each level are collect all the collectible stars present or a “bonus credit” in the level and end up finishing the level before your time is up. Needless to say, once you get to the harder levels, it can get pretty freakin’ hard. Nitrous boosting is a very important part of completing your tasks because it can help you get over gaps and almost fly around while you have some juice to use.

During race mode, you’re able to race against three other computer opponents and beat them. If you’re able to get into first place, you’ll get three credits. When you play the races in challenge mode, however, you’ll go up against only one opponent, except the difference is that there are stars to collect, and to get the credits for collecting all the stars, you have to obviously collect them all and then beat your opponent. During the races, you’re able to use three types of weapons against your foes, including a homing missile, a box of TNT, and a shield. It’s a skimpy selection, but it does well enough since you won’t really be racing that much during the game. Once you achieve a certain amount of points, you can unlock certain bonus games that are completely different from anything else in the game. You’re able to earn credits by achieving certain goals within each bonus game.

What I personally love about the game are the load times. There are no loading times at all when you restart a level (and that happens quite a bit), or the loading only takes a couple seconds before you go to a new level. It was definitely the right thing to do in a game like this, especially when the PSP has become admonished because of long load times. The lack of any really noticeable loading definitely gives the game a good reason to be played in quick bursts and to keep up at trying to complete a level after multiple failures without becoming frustrated for reasons other than the actual challenge of the level.

What holds GripShift back from being a must-have PSP game is the lack of polish when it comes to actual gameplay. While there are some parts of the game that are good (like level design, challenge, and the sheer amount of levels and things to do), there are three main aspects that I can pick out as worth noting. For one, the sensation of speed is off tremendously relative to the actual mph (or kmph) to what you feel like you’re going in the game. When it feels like you’re going around thirty mph, it says that you’re going something like fifty five. Not that it’s a really big deal (because you’re not really going to be looking at how fast you’re going most of the time), but it reflects on the how well the game is polished. Another aspect is the control. Unfortunately, whether it was the programming or the actual hardware limitations, the PSP’s analog nub makes it hard control especially around the tight bends and fast turns. Another aspect that is quite un-fulfilling is the race mode. GripShift is no Wipeout Pure when it comes to racing, especially with the limited selection of weaponry involved, and due to the sensitivity of the controls being a bit off it can be harder than it should be. But, all of these elements really don’t take a huge toll on the overall feel of the game, as you’ll just have to compensate with the game’s downsides.

When it comes to graphics and sound, it’s a mixed bag. The graphics are nice to say the least, and definitely what should be seen on the PSP at this point of its life. Music and sound effects are a different deal though. I don’t know why, but GripShift has an awfully weird music selection for a driving game, especially one that involves frustrating platforming, time limits, and star collecting. I couldn’t really even tell you what genre of music it is, but it sounds like a hybrid of hip-hop, rock (with a light amount of ska), and a little bit of electronica. Not only that, but I couldn’t even distinguish if there was more than one group/band on the soundtrack just by listening to it. I would have appreciated a little bit more of a regular rock soundtrack as it would have just blended better, but in the end the music really doesn’t take away from the experience. Sound effects are fine, especially the car screeching sounds that your buggy makes at every direction change. Depending on which driver you select for your persona in the game, you’ll hear their sayings as they fall off the level into oblivion or when time is running up. The driver selection is basically a stereotypical cast; the one I use the most is the stoner surfer guy that I think is on the front cover of the game and he says stuff like “Whoaaaaaa” and “duuuuuudeeee” and “hurry up dude!” all the time.

If its one thing that GripShift is good for, it’s wasting time. If you can get past the small control issues and tolerate the music and sound effects, you’ll find one heck of a game that’s loaded with enough challenge to keep any bored person busy. Especially with a thousand credits to collect (which might not seem like a lot, but when you gain only one or two credits every once in a while it will seem like a major feat to accomplish) and quite a few aspects to unlock with the credits gained during play, it’s a game that will take a lot of hours to finish.